Thats not always the case. Read my post from above. When I want to trade, sometimes its late at night, and I know all sellers are probably sleeping. So I look for the one who is around. Now I can't do that. I get my bitcoins blocked for 2 hours before trade automatically gets cancelled.

Does anyone use this website for cash transactions? I wonder about the chances of encountering an undercover agent who tries to get you for something with the site.

After I was arrested by homeland security the justice department was very interested in taking over my localbitcoins account. As part of the plea deals they offered me they wanted the account so they could use it for undercover operations.

I am certain that many who are arrested will turn over their accounts as part of their plea deals. I did not accept any plea deal so I never turned my account over to them, however I have not used it since the arrest since using the darn thing is what got me into trouble in the first place.

If I had never advertised on localbitcoins they would have never been able to claim what I was doing was a business and they would not have been able to arrest me for running a business without the proper license.

At least some localbitcoins account are run by federal agents, cooperating witnesses or undercover agents in local jurisdictions. That is a fact.

Much of the evidence presented against me was from undercover operations where they video and audio taped me in a coffee shop doing a trade of BTC for cash or cash for BTC - all arranged through their accounts or cooperating witnesses on localbitcoins.

It is not illegal to use localbitcoins as a customer to buy or sell BTC. Always assume you are dealing with an cop so be very careful what you say. If they ask you what you are going to use the BTC for they may be trying to get you to admit you are going to use them for something illegal.

Advertising on localbitcoins is a whole other matter. The US federal law enforcement can use the fact that you are advertising to claim you need a license. That is what happened to me. The whole thing cost me over $250,000 to clear my name and avoid going to prison.

Our family was terrorized by Homeland Security. Read all about it here: http://www.jmwagner.com/ and http://www.burtw.com/ Any donations to help us recover from the $300,000 in legal fees and forced donations to the Federal Asset Forfeiture slush fund are greatly appreciated!

A headsup for anyone using localbitcoins. A lot of accounts are being hacked lately, and a friend of mine got hacked too. If you do have an account and don't use it from time to time, its best to check out this page to make sure, you are the only one logging in: localbitcoins.com/accounts/security/login_history/

Today i want to report a big cover-up going on at Localbitcoins, and predict it's demise in favor of smarter competitors.

Regarding this "reputation system":

As a new buyer i took time off from work and went to town today thinking i could give Localbitcoins a try.

I opened three trades, and was BLOWN OFF by three traders.

Being new, i didn't know how long i'm supposed to wait for responses, and ended up wasting hours that were taken directly from paid work i could have been doing otherwise. I did not bother to try and open a fourth trade as the sun was going down and i wanted to try get in a couple hours work so the day was not completely wasted.

Because the first trader that blew me off, USMC1991, did not bother to respond or state any personal policy that would exclude me, it took me a long time, two more mis-trades, to find out that prejudice against new buyers runs rampant at Localbitcoins. Not one of these prejudiced traders stated, in their advertising, that they will not do business with new traders.

While a trade is open, a buyer is restricted from opening other trades, if and when sellers refuse to respond, or respond with "cancel the trade. I need more reputation".

If you didn't know what was going on, you could end up wasting valuable time, especially if you are trying to move into bitcoin on a dip. You have to cancel prior attempts to buy, before you can move on.

On my second attempt, at least the seller messaged back, soon, "sorry. cancel. need more reputation".

Since this prejudice was news to me, i began to inquire.

Turns out the reason he wanted me to cancel is because his BTC was locked in escrow until the trade is resolved somehow either by completion or by cancel on the buyers side.

I demanded a good reason this seller would not sell, as i was standing with my cash next to a Wells Fargo, ready to deposit to whatever account # he sent. He tries his best to insult me, calling me "son", and telling me he does not need to explain his policy to me. Finally he admits its his policy he does not sell to new. Fine. Fair enough. But then i wanted to know why he did not state this policy, up front, in his advertising so that new buyers don't waste their time clicking on prejudiced sellers buttons. I started talking about logging negative feedback, while his text seemed to indicate that he thought his feedback could blow my feedback out of the water. Then he opened up a "dispute" with Localbitcoins to try to get them to get me to cancel the trade. So i cancelled it and went immediately to try to register negative feedback.

When i went to register negative feedback, lo and behold, there were no links available for me to do so.

So i opened a support ticket with Localbitcoins and found out this, that you can only leave feedback if:

"- Trade volume between you and your trading partner is more than 0.5 Bitcoin"

This means if sellers ignore you and waste your time, you can't report it.

This means the feedback on Localbitcoins does not account for any trade closed by a cancel, or anything less than 0.5 BTC.

This must account for a large part of the volume (or no volume in case sellers are ignoring buyers) at Localbitcoins, hence, the coverup.

Furthermore, feedback power is reserved for whales who have done more than 50 BTC in volume. You can leave feedback regardless the trade is cancelled, or the trade is less than 0.5 BTC if:

"- The total trade volume of the person who is leaving feedback is more than 50 Bitcoin"

This means the three sellers who blew me off today could leave negative feedback against me (if they are whales), but i can't leave feedback against them.

This means that if, as someone whose time they have wasted, I protest against this treatment, they could hit me, but i could not hit back.

This leads to something else i discovered, as i was blown off by yet another seller.

This third seller was trying to filter his buyers by conducting SMS text messaging outside of Localbitcoins, prior to the buyer opening up the trade. He wanted to know my username. So i gave him my username. No response. So once again, a seller is refusing to do business with a new buyer, and starts to waste my time. But through text messaging, i found out his motive: he is trying to keep "coin lockers" from locking up his coin in escrow before he has a chance to reject the new buyers.

Who are these "coin lockers"?

Given the censoring scenario i have described above, the "coin lockers" are people who are protesting sellers who won't sell to new buyers, ignore new buyers, waste new buyers time...and who are given no feedback outlet to let the public know what is going on here at Localbitcoins.

So in protest, they open trades, and lock up the BTC of the seller in escrow for the maximum amount of time.

Personally, i want to know who are all the sellers who won't sell to new buyers. As a new buyer, i want to boycott them forever, even after i become an established buyer with this elusive "reputation" we hear about.

I have suggested to Localbitcoins that they create another subcategory market for sellers that only want to sell to buyers with some established reputation. That way, new buyers don't have to waste their time clicking on their buttons, and can boycott them in the future.

I have also suggested Localbitcoins require such sellers to state their no-new-buyers policy clearly in their pre-sale stipulations (none of the three stated their policy), so our time is not wasted trying to to business with prejudiced sellers.

If Localbitcoins does nothing about this culture, then it's clear there is a systemic cover-up going on within their business model.

Finally, i suggest that people use this forum for new buyers to report any sellers they discover won't do business, either by ignoring new buyers, or blowing them off with insults.

Does anyone use this website for cash transactions? I wonder about the chances of encountering an undercover agent who tries to get you for something with the site.

After I was arrested by homeland security the justice department was very interested in taking over my localbitcoins account. As part of the plea deals they offered me they wanted the account so they could use it for undercover operations.

I am certain that many who are arrested will turn over their accounts as part of their plea deals. I did not accept any plea deal so I never turned my account over to them, however I have not used it since the arrest since using the darn thing is what got me into trouble in the first place.

If I had never advertised on localbitcoins they would have never been able to claim what I was doing was a business and they would not have been able to arrest me for running a business without the proper license.

At least some localbitcoins account are run by federal agents, cooperating witnesses or undercover agents in local jurisdictions. That is a fact.

Much of the evidence presented against me was from undercover operations where they video and audio taped me in a coffee shop doing a trade of BTC for cash or cash for BTC - all arranged through their accounts or cooperating witnesses on localbitcoins.

It is not illegal to use localbitcoins as a customer to buy or sell BTC. Always assume you are dealing with an cop so be very careful what you say. If they ask you what you are going to use the BTC for they may be trying to get you to admit you are going to use them for something illegal.

Advertising on localbitcoins is a whole other matter. The US federal law enforcement can use the fact that you are advertising to claim you need a license. That is what happened to me. The whole thing cost me over $250,000 to clear my name and avoid going to prison.

Folks,

After reading this, it occurs to me that sellers most likely to ignore new buyers could include undercover agents, or people cooperating with the gov for a plea deal. The reason may be because new buyers are the most difficult to hold charges against. They may be focused on drag-netting for established buyers against whom it may be easier to cultivate extortive charges.

Therefore i urge new buyers to come here and report these sellers who, besides wasting our time, qualify to most probably be the agents that we know are lurking and trolling Localbitcoins.

I have submitted a support ticket to Localbitcoins letting them know that this reputation system is functioning as a de facto blacklist for the untold numbers of sellers who are using it to discriminate against new buyers, like me. I've actually never bought anything through Localbitcoins yet, due to this system.

I will report back here what Localbitcoins says about my request to get some sort of list of sellers whose policy it is to refuse new buyers so that we all have our black lists of people to avoid, evening the playing field, so that new buyers are not always wasting their time.

Will see what they have to say, but i am resigned to the probability that the entire site has been fully compromised by the feds.

After reading this, it occurs to me that sellers most likely to ignore new buyers could include undercover agents, or people cooperating with the gov for a plea deal. The reason may be because new buyers are the most difficult to hold charges against. They may be focused on drag-netting for established buyers against whom it may be easier to cultivate extortive charges.

Therefore i urge new buyers to come here and report these sellers who, besides wasting our time, qualify to most probably be the agents that we know are lurking and trolling Localbitcoins.

[see my prior post above]

If you are a customer, that is a person that is answering an ad on localbitcoins, then they will have a very hard time calling you a business so they can arrest you. What they go after are people advertising and doing a lot of trades. These can be called businesses and therefore they can be arrested like I was.

It sounds like StillCrypto was a customer. This is not who they go after. I think it is totally silly not to do business with noobs. Their cash is as green as the customers with lots of reputation. I did most of my trades with noobs. I did it as a service to the community: to help people get their first Bitcoins, answer their questions, and meet and greet new Bitcoin enthusiasts. I do not understand this unwillingness to do business with noobs. Perhaps one of these people with this prejudice against noobs can come here and explain the reason.

On localbitcoins the safest course of action is as follows:

If you are a customer responding to an ad you should assume that the person placing the ad is either a cooperating witness, undercover agent, is working for law enforcement, working with law enforcement or is a law enforcement agent. This means that as a customer be very suspicious if they ask questions like "what do you plan to do with your Bitcoins" when you are buying or "where did you get your Bitcoins" if you are selling. If you are a customer (not placing ads) they cannot bust you for running an unlicensed business. You are a customer. They might try to bust you for something else - but from my personal experience you should not have to worry about 18-1960.

If you are an advertiser then you should assume that anyone that responds to your ads is with law enforcement. You should assume that they are making a video and audio recording of the transaction and that once they collect enough evidence that you are "running a business" they will arrest you and charge you with 18-1960 "operating a money transmittal business without a license". They do this so they can shake you down for the asset forfeiture to fund their operations. You can avoid this by getting the state money transmittal license if required by your state and getting the federal money transmittal license if your state requires a license. Otherwise you may find yourself in a federal holding facility, charged with a felony, and having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend yourself OR find yourself taking a plea deal and working undercover for law enforcement doing undercover buys and sells of Bitcoins in order to entrap other advertisers on localbitcoins.

Note: as an advertiser if you are trying to filter out law enforcement by filtering out noobs that will not work. Law enforcement has access to plenty of high reputation accounts having busted their owners and gotten the accounts as part of their plea agreements. So again, I do not understand the reluctance to doing business with a noob.

Our family was terrorized by Homeland Security. Read all about it here: http://www.jmwagner.com/ and http://www.burtw.com/ Any donations to help us recover from the $300,000 in legal fees and forced donations to the Federal Asset Forfeiture slush fund are greatly appreciated!

After reading this, it occurs to me that sellers most likely to ignore new buyers could include undercover agents, or people cooperating with the gov for a plea deal. The reason may be because new buyers are the most difficult to hold charges against. They may be focused on drag-netting for established buyers against whom it may be easier to cultivate extortive charges.

Therefore i urge new buyers to come here and report these sellers who, besides wasting our time, qualify to most probably be the agents that we know are lurking and trolling Localbitcoins.

[see my prior post above]

If you are a customer, that is a person that is answering an ad on localbitcoins, then they will have a very hard time calling you a business so they can arrest you. What they go after are people advertising and doing a lot of trades. These can be called businesses and therefore they can be arrested like I was.

It sounds like StillCrypto was a customer. This is not who they go after. I think it is totally silly not to do business with noobs. Their cash is as green as the customers with lots of reputation. I did most of my trades with noobs. I did it as a service to the community: to help people get their first Bitcoins, answer their questions, and meet and greet new Bitcoin enthusiasts. I do not understand this unwillingness to do business with noobs. Perhaps one of these people with this prejudice against noobs can come here and explain the reason.

On localbitcoins the safest course of action is as follows:

If you are a customer responding to an ad you should assume that the person placing the ad is either a cooperating witness, undercover agent, is working for law enforcement, working with law enforcement or is a law enforcement agent. This means that as a customer be very suspicious if they ask questions like "what do you plan to do with your Bitcoins" when you are buying or "where did you get your Bitcoins" if you are selling. If you are a customer (not placing ads) they cannot bust you for running an unlicensed business. You are a customer. They might try to bust you for something else - but from my personal experience you should not have to worry about 18-1960.

If you are an advertiser then you should assume that anyone that responds to your ads is with law enforcement. You should assume that they are making a video and audio recording of the transaction and that once they collect enough evidence that you are "running a business" they will arrest you and charge you with 18-1960 "operating a money transmittal business without a license". They do this so they can shake you down for the asset forfeiture to fund their operations. You can avoid this by getting the state money transmittal license if required by your state and getting the federal money transmittal license if your state requires a license. Otherwise you may find yourself in a federal holding facility, charged with a felony, and having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend yourself OR find yourself taking a plea deal and working undercover for law enforcement doing undercover buys and sells of Bitcoins in order to entrap other advertisers on localbitcoins.

Note: as an advertiser if you are trying to filter out law enforcement by filtering out noobs that will not work. Law enforcement has access to plenty of high reputation accounts having busted their owners and gotten the accounts as part of their plea agreements. So again, I do not understand the reluctance to doing business with a noob.

Thanks Burt.

Very sorry to hear about the terrorism raised against you. Asset forfeiture is a big issue with me. The injustice seems so obvious. The way you explained it makes it perfectly clear what they are up to, and how badly it motivates everything they do. So i can't understand why the DOJ , especially the current head, isn't aware of the injustice, or care about it enough to not crack down on it, and worse, to get deeper involved with it, with the help of weed laws. It's beyond my comprehension.

Yes, i hope some sellers will come here and explain their prejudice against noobs. I can't comprehend their position at the moment. Maybe it started with face to face transactions. We heard a lot of horror stories about those back in the day. But online transactions? How is it possible for a seller to get hurt? Unbelievable.

I'm wondering, is there some threshold of sells at which terrorists will label sellers as a "business"?

Is it better to just stick to online transactions if the intent is to reduce chances of terrorist terrorism?

Is getting a money transmitters license in-congruent with the fact that what most sellers are doing is not actually illegal?

Suppose i accept the in-congruency of the extortion scheme, is it difficult to get a money transmitters license? Costly?

Assuming i could even get one, i suppose its just a matter of filing and paying taxes at the usual rates, every year/quarter, yes?

Do you think it would be worth it to get a license? Or, what kind of volume do you think would warrant a license?

Sorry to ask such noob questions. Certainly don't answer any that might provoke more terrorism from terrorists.

[edit] Oh, one last question. Can you think of a better business model, other than Localbitcoins, for getting things done? Maybe a distributed blockchain solution?

Avoid dealing with Localbitcoins.com ! The feedback system used by Localbitcoins.com is a fraud!Localbitcoins.com support always sides with "pro" traders, regardless of the situation!

All this above and below is my own personal opinion and I really wish none of you would ever have to meet so arrogant seller or customer support agent like I met in Localbitcoins.com

I rather use decent exchanges and will spend 48h+ on international wiring than ever use Localbitcoins again. Here's quick story: I using theirs service for almost 4 years, 100% positive feedback, trade volume 50-100BTC and there never was a problem until now. On Friday evening I bought 0.23 BTC from the trader with whom I've traded 5 BTC+ in the past. Now since I was trading with him before I did not care to read his terms&conditions (my bad, really) and eventually this trader added 7 rules in order to buy BTC from him. Ofc I missed them and than the shit hit's the fan. For starters was him saying that he will withhold my BTC locked for extra 24-48hours after it received. Than Tuesday (~after 36 hours of payment received) he sends me message that I have to do ID check with Localbtc because I did not followed his rules and I've paid from my wife's account. He agrees that he have the money, but now he plays smart ass and keeps holding my BTC because "I could be a scammer who paid it from stolen account).So opening a claim with support. Now support just sending me automated replies until tonight I've receiving this email:

to me xx, do the following in 8 hours or the dispute will resolve to the seller:1. verify your ID here: https://localbitcoins.com.........................2. attach a picture of your ID held next to the laptop or phone screen showing the online payment (with the full screen and browser address bar visible).3. attach a picture of your ID held next to the laptop or phone screen showing this trade page (with the full screen and browser address bar visible).

They giving me 8 hours to fix all they asking for. And email received at 01:36 in the night. Means that if I were working today I would be done (as I don't have access to such websites from work PC), if I was sleeping longer than usually I would be done again, because 09:36 am was the deadline.

Seems that support of this website always leans towards the one who have bigger trade volume. And localbitcoin dying to get your ID uploaded to theirs website!Update:

Now when I completed steps above, I got this email:---D.King: xx, Please also provide the following documents with your wife's ID in 8 hours1. attach a picture of you and your wife hold your ID together with a note " I am xxx and I am aware my husband is buying bitcoin with account XX on localbitcoins paid with my bank account"2. attach a picture of your wife's ID held next to the laptop or phone screen showing the online payment (with the full screen and browser address bar visible).3. attach a picture of your wife's ID held next to the laptop or phone screen showing this trade page (with the full screen and browser address bar visible).---Next request will be: Stand naked in the terrace with D.Trump photo and say you will worship no one but him and only him???

Update:

After sending message with request to refund money, or other wise we will initiate charge back.Seller have agreed to refund to my payment. What is strange that, after leaving negative feedback for seller and seeing him blocked by 6 person's he still have Feedback score 100 %. While solo negative feedback left by him reduced my feedback score to 88%. So I assume this Localbitcoins.com feedback only works to protect the one's who have bigger trade volume

Your account has been deemed to be high risk. You are no longer allowed to trade on LocalBitcoins. Any new account you create will also be banned.

The decision is final. You will not be unbanned.

---So here's a list, of what "high risk account" holder has done:1. Phone number verified for last 3 years.2.ID confirmed by one trusted seller for 3.5 years.3. ID (passport) uploaded and verified - after the forced me to do so.4. Photos of my ID.

Seems my request to delete all my uploaded pictures with my private data really hurt them a lot, so this was the answer to my request of deleting all submitted personal ID scans. Also the seller that they so protecting is still with 100% positive feedback, even when I left negative feedback for him. Giving a link to this post in support request most likely helped me to get ban also

--------------------------------------------They don't even asked me, have I received refund or not? They just take .jpg picture uploaded by seller as solid proof of payment complete to me Since seller has 500BTC+ trade volume and I only have 50-100BTC volume

Now Q is: Why Localbitcoins blackmailed me to upload my passport ID and verify account and in the same time send my ID next to screen with Localbtc account and banking page account. If they knew that it will not help to resolve the case and they will ask more and more pictures with my wife and such? I've asked them to delete all identification pictures I've sent them and also remove "Id verified" from my account. If they fail to confirm that they did so, I will raise complain with local authorities. Because I believe I was blackmailed to upload my sensitive personal data without legit reason and I'm not sure that Localbtc will not misuse it in the future, or will not get hacked and all my private data will be out in the open?

I just tried to open an account at BitcoinIRA.com and it did not go well.

Everything was going fine, I filled out all the paperwork, transferred my Roth IRA funds to BitcoinIRA and was waiting for the call from their trading partner, Genesis Trading, in order to by the Bitcoins for the IRA.

Instead I got a call from BitcoinIRA saying that Genesis Trading would not do the trade due to an article they found about me.

It was explained to me that because they found this article they would not do the trade to purchase the Bitcoins.

I tried to explain to them that the charge was dismissed with prejudice to no avail.

So, my wife called the attorney at Genesis Trading. The attorney at Genesis Trading told her that they have an internal policy of not doing any business with anyone who has ever done any trading at localbitcions.com!

So, just wanted to let you all know that if you have ever traded at localbitcoins you cannot get an IRA through BitcoinIRA.com

I am in the process of trying out some of their competitors. I will update when I know more.

Our family was terrorized by Homeland Security. Read all about it here: http://www.jmwagner.com/ and http://www.burtw.com/ Any donations to help us recover from the $300,000 in legal fees and forced donations to the Federal Asset Forfeiture slush fund are greatly appreciated!

I wouldn't trust localbitcoins their support sucks. The stole $500 from me when I sent bitcoincash to an address I have on my account there. They claim they do not have access therefore they do not have access to their own private keys.

Is getting a money transmitters license in-congruent with the fact that what most sellers are doing is not actually illegal?

Yes because a license is defined as "permssion to do something which is technically illegal".

Like, for example, driving a car? Operating a beauty salon?

What the heck are you talking about?

Our family was terrorized by Homeland Security. Read all about it here: http://www.jmwagner.com/ and http://www.burtw.com/ Any donations to help us recover from the $300,000 in legal fees and forced donations to the Federal Asset Forfeiture slush fund are greatly appreciated!

Is getting a money transmitters license in-congruent with the fact that what most sellers are doing is not actually illegal?

Yes because a license is defined as "permssion to do something which is technically illegal".

Like, for example, driving a car? Operating a beauty salon?

What the heck are you talking about?

Yes, rights usurped into licensed privileges.

I get your meaning now: in a perfect (or at least more ideal) world we would not need to get a license from the goobermint to do things like trade Bitcoins, drive a car, etc. etc.

Agreed.

Our family was terrorized by Homeland Security. Read all about it here: http://www.jmwagner.com/ and http://www.burtw.com/ Any donations to help us recover from the $300,000 in legal fees and forced donations to the Federal Asset Forfeiture slush fund are greatly appreciated!